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The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad; let the distant shores rejoice. Clouds and thick darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Light shines on the righteous and joy on the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord, you who are righteous, and praise his holy name. (Psalm 97:1-2, 11-12).

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This psalm encapsulated both Israel\u2019s present faith and their future hope.\xa0

The Lord reigns: even now, despite however things might look.\xa0 And the Psalmist believes that to be good news.\xa0 News that should bring all the earth into gladness and rejoicing.\xa0 Why?\xa0 Because righteousness and justice are the foundations of God\u2019s throne.\xa0

The Kingdom of God, God\u2019s own rule and reign is the essence of all that is right, sound, and solid in this world.\xa0 God\u2019s Kingdom is itself a living standard by which all things can and will be judged, but a standard that in the end brings all things back to the very fullest of life.\xa0 And so the Creation can rejoice in the hope and knowledge that it will one day be liberated from its groanings and set free once again to flourish.\xa0

And so with our own lives too: there is a strange confidence the people of God hold on to that there is indeed a living standard of righteousness and justice that transcends our politicking--a justice out there that will \u201cjudge the justice for which we fight,\u201d as Leslie Newbigin put it.\xa0 Interestingly, that should never give us confidence that we are above the law, as Christians have sometimes done.\xa0 No: this justice is clean, pure, and impartial, dividing soul from spirit and joint from marrow when it comes to it.\xa0 There\u2019s nothing hidden that will not be brought to light.\xa0 So, our confidence resides not in the fact that we ourselves are righteous and just, but in the fact that we know a God who is.\xa0 A God who knows what actually is wrong with this world, and who is also big enough to set it right.

Here then is the future hope of Israel found in this Psalm.\xa0 Some of its images do indeed echo with our own book of Revelation, I think.\xa0 In the middle of the Psalm, we find that all peoples see the glory of God, and those who have entrusted themselves to any lesser god are put to shame as the justice and righteousness of the Lord King of heaven and earth is powerfully revealed.\xa0 \xa0\xa0

Of course, for the people of God, this is the moment when all suffering is redeemed as all injustice is set right.\xa0 A moment we have been sitting in pews and folding our hands at bedsides praying and watching for all our lives.\xa0 This is the moment when the light shines on the righteous and the people of God are made glad.\xa0

Oddly enough, we know that this somehow includes us, unrighteous though we may feel.\xa0 \u201cThe righteous\u201d includes us, not because we are above the law or have an in with the judge that would cause him to look the other way.\xa0 No\u2014this God is the very one who, after making a just appraisal of our situation, has nevertheless loved us, chosen us, and shown mercy and forgiveness to us in Jesus Christ.\xa0

So: \u201cRejoice in the Lord, you who [have been freely made] righteous, and praise his holy name.\u201d

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